Well, curses.

I was trying to write a scene where MC enters the apartment of a person who doesn’t really exist, and slowly, realizes what’s bothering him is the lack of personal touches. It’s been “window dressed” to look like people live there, but only on a quick glance.

But, this is a future culture where you can carry your personal everything on a small set tucked behind your ear. Maybe you have one backup stack or major system with all your entertainment/correspondence/etc but the majority of what you own is digital, intangible. So I can’t say that he misses the books, the movies, the letters, the unpaid bills. Of of that is digital. So what would be left? I assume a culture like that would be largely clutter free–maybe? And if so… what personal touches could he miss? The obvious stuff–pictures on the wall, stuff in the drawers like clothes or jewelry, I feel like someone faking the place would have noticed and covered.

Sadly I’m a cluttery person; I have boxes full of stupid things I keep as memories. But there is no requirement that all people would have that kind of thing. (Main character himself lives in a very sparse place, with a bed and chair and that’s about it.) Are there things which you might not think of right away which, no matter how neat you are, would indicate it’s a home and not a hotel? Clothes in the cleaning queue? Trash in the recycler? Or would all that be so automated it’d go right away? Hmmmm….

I guess I could just have it be something relatively obvious like the clothes are all newish and nothing looks used, but that seems so very obvious. Then again, he starts to wonder when he sees the kitchen cupboards are largely empty–though at first he writes this off as simply the person being someone who simply eats out all the time.

Must ponder.